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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27038581">The Ritual of Ascension</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/burninbodies/pseuds/burninbodies'>burninbodies</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cthulhu Mythos - Fandom, Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cosmic, Horror, Supernatural Elements, Yog-Sothoth - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:27:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,496</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27038581</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/burninbodies/pseuds/burninbodies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Vania, a member of a mysterious cult, has finally found the artefact she's been searching years for. When presented to their leader, Mordecai, they begin a ritual to summon a cosmic beast they believe will allow them to ascend into eternal salvation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Ritual of Ascension</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Did you find it?"</p>
<p>"Yes."</p>
<p>"Good." A look of satisfaction creeps across Mordecai's face as he continues, "now," he adds, "we must burn it." I see a smile growing upon his lips as he turns and walks away to prepare everyone for the ritual. Not even Mordecai can maintain his composure in the face of his excitement. But I cannot fault him, it has been six failing years since we began our search for the artefact. Many years before that worshiping falsities hoping to find truth, when the truth was down a much different path. Now, we have found the gate to that path, all we need to do is open it and traverse our way to true salvation. My heart races at the thought of what will transpire shortly, all my brethren and sistren becoming one with Him, becoming a part of Him. I smile, as I do not need to conceal my emotions, and go to join Mordecai.</p>
<p>The air around the temple grows uneasy with the anticipation of what is to come, everyone is eager to begin the ritual, all the years of waiting is finally over and even I feel impatience welling up within me. Soon, the pyre will be complete and upon it, the artefact, with its unnatural angles, and grotesque imagery; will sit waiting to fulfill its purpose. It was no small feat locating and acquiring this device, and I lament to see the fruits of that work reduced to a charred frame only because I was ignorant to its fate. But its much greater purpose vastly outweighs any grievances I might have had in my life, as our efforts shall let us live in eternity.</p>
<p>"Vania." I turn to find Mordecai, his stern gaze fixed upon me. "It's time," he continues as he motions for me to follow him. I do so without hesitation, allowing my eagerness to flow forth and consume my actions. My heart races, I can feel it in my throat, I can hear it in my head pounding at the back of my eyes, trying to break free. I follow Mordecai to the gardens, equidistant from every corner of the temple and open to the night sky, so that He can greet us in open view. I turn the corner into the gardens, and I can see the pyre, its tremendous girth sitting in the center, the stygian artefact perched upon it waiting for us, gazing down at us. Nothing on Earth can describe its visage or the form it claims, the grotesque physiology is a trick of the sight, looking different at all angles. The cyclopean base even more perplexing, the angles it presents seem to be acute yet obtuse, tetrahedral yet cuboid, nothing of Euclidean geometry, nothing of this world. You could feel your sanity slip the more you gazed upon it, the more you tried to see what was not there. It is incomprehensible to those from this plane of existence.</p>
<p>Mordecai gathered us all before the pyre and as we all looked upon him with the artefact looming above, he began to speak, "After many years, the time has come for us to realize our true purpose. Our time on this plane has ended, it is time for us to ascend into greater existence beyond all that is or will be, we shall begin our journey to live in eternity, to become one with each other and with Him! Our great Father, the guardian of the gate! The past, present, and the future; all are one in Yog-Sothoth!"</p>
<p>"All are one in Yog-Sothoth!" Everyone shouted, I could feel their energy flowing through the grounds, a new-found excitement soared in me as we all began shouting His name. This is the beginning of our emergence as one in Him. This is the beginning of our new journey as our shouts became chants and we circled the pyre, Mordecai remaining in the center. He plucked a torch from the stand and raised it high, I could see the flame gleaming in his eyes, the shadows dancing across his face. We quieted down as he turned to the pyre, silence stuffing our ears.</p>
<p>"Father! Come to us and be pleased with what we offer, take us into Your everlasting embrace so that we may be one with You in eternity!" Mordecai shouted and shoved the torch into the oil-drenched wood. The fire roared and swirled around the artefact, consuming it, then died down quickly as the strangest thing started happening. The artefact did not char, instead the stygian statue burned a bright hue. At first, I thought I knew what it was but the more I looked the more I could not identify it. I realized the other-worldly color was nothing any human has gazed upon before, and it was burning brighter by the second. I started to hear some of us begin chanting again as the fire rose and the statue burned ever brighter, and soon we were all chanting.</p>
<p>"All are one in Yog-Sothoth!"</p>
<p>"All are one in Yog-Sothoth!"</p>
<p>"All are one in Yog-Sothoth!"</p>
<p>I began to feel the energy of the others flowing through me, it felt as though we were all of the same mind, sharing the same thoughts, sharing the same body. I no longer felt like I was an individual, but of one being composed of many. I was consumed by the energy, I felt compelled to continue not because of the ritual but because we were all a collective, our bodies and minds had accepted each other with no discrimination. Our dream was no longer fantasy, and this was only the beginning. Soon, we would be accepted into the arms of infinity, where our minds and body will truly fuse as one.</p>
<p>Suddenly, a loud crack came from the sky, I was brought out of my trance and focused my attention to the stars, awaiting His arrival. Lightning spider-webbed overhead and the black night lit up as it began to rain. We were all silent as the rain battered our heads and the artefact continued to burn ever brighter, our gaze fixed upon the sky. A moment passed as the rain began to fall harder and the burning artefact began to die down until it was a glowing ember. I began to think we had made a mistake, and something went wrong, I looked to where Mordecai was and could barely see that he was not there. I looked around panicking trying to find him, my heart was in my head again and I could tell others were starting to feel the same way. Then came a loud boom from overhead and a streak of lightning lit up the sky once again. I looked up and there he was, Mordecai was suspended in the air being held by a fraying tendril. I looked beyond Mordecai…</p>
<p>And saw Him.</p>
<p>My mind seared like a hand on white-hot metal and my eyes boiled until the pain was too much and I clamped them shut. His form was beyond human comprehension that even my sanity and physical form could not handle to look upon it. I heard others cry in pain.</p>
<p>In the instance I managed to gaze upon Him, He spanned the sky itself, a gargantuan mass with no end or beginning. I could only describe His body as a tangle of tentacles that bifurcate again and again, smooth blobs of red and brown flesh that serve no purpose other than to horrify, and eyes—there were eyes everywhere. He was more than I had ever imagined Him to be, all the passages I read of Him could never encapsulate the true experience of what He was. And understandably so, because even my pathetic attempt to describe something so beyond words serves Him no justice.</p>
<p>But He was beautiful.</p>
<p>No one moved, we only waited to be carried into His embrace, and He obliged swiftly, lifting each of us up into His eternity.</p>
<p>When I felt His touch for the first time, I began to feel a maddening effect take hold of me, like my body and mind was splitting into several instances. I observed myself ascending into the air, and I could see others as if they were right next to me, but I still held one vessel. My mind could see into the others being carried, melding our thoughts together making them incomprehensibly coherent. I could sense everyone was perplexed with the process and I could feel it concede into acceptance as He took us further.</p>
<p>We opened our eyes and brought our gaze upward to Him, we no longer feared the pain, yet none came, He has allowed us to gaze upon His magnificence. We were getting so close, but our comprehension of His form had not advanced, He now looked similar to a fleshy nebula as if we were looking through Him and into the cosmos, bright shining stars here and there. We flew upward until He brought us close to a blob of His cosmic flesh, a cluster of stars seemed to be suspended there, infinitely close, and infinitely far. Until it was not flesh anymore as it began opening into an infinite blackness. A small dot at first, dilating with growing vigor, the stars giving way to this vicious void. Soon, we realized it was one of His astronomical eyes. His attention was fixed beyond us.</p>
<p>His gaze snapped to meet ours and the strength of His ethereal grasp could be felt tightening around our mind, probing the innards of our consciousness. It felt as if the atoms of our brain were being rearranged and spread throughout space. We felt a tugging, invisible threads pulling over the entire surface of our body. We did not move, instead we felt a strange disconnect and our vision dissolved into black as He changed us to His will. We could feel reality melt and transform around us and as our vision returned and the gaping void that is His eye came into view, a new image appeared: Earth. But Earth was not in front of us as He had remained, it seemed to be all around us, only He seemed to occupy a fixed area of space. Once we realized this, we noticed that the Sun was also visible, as was Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. The entire solar system was within our vision, able to be observed simultaneously.</p>
<p>We felt his grip once more, shockingly more powerful than before and paralyzing the being He had made us into. Surging energy as thin as a needle shot through what we perceived to be our body repeatedly. We could feel our consciousness being manipulated once again as we spread out further into space. We did not lose our vision as we did before, instead He directed our attention into the infinite depths of His eye. The gaping maw grew until we were just a drop of water in an ebony sea of ancient cosmos. We could feel his grip tighten and he pulled us forward into His void, swallowing us. As we ascended through Him, a visual sea surrounded us. Nebulae emanating the same hues as the artefact, which were unnatural and strange before, became clear and welcoming. Lines of shimmering white light stretched in all directions, they did not block our sight and seemed infinitely close yet could not be touched. Our sight had remained as before but had grown to colossal scale. As we focused our thoughts, we discovered we could spread our sight farther than just solar systems. We could see entire galaxies all at once, then galaxy clusters, until we could see entire super-clusters. Eventually, our sight covered the entire universe.</p>
<p>Everything felt familiar like we had known all our lives of these things, yet we were seeing them for the first time as we moved through Him. Images that a creature would never see in an evolutionary cycle. We could sense our journey was almost complete, our ascension to become one with Him was ending.</p>
<p>A strange calm washed over me like a gentle wave on the beach, I was no longer in His grasp. By bringing me into Him, He spread me throughout the universe and even beyond that of space and time itself, into all that encompasses existence, into all that is and will be. Truthfully, I am existence: A Singularity of Consciousness, a God. Surrounding me was blackness speckled by infinite flickering stars, a typical night sky on Earth. Unlike on Earth, each of these stars was an isolated universe with its own collection of infinite stars. Some of which will have life orbiting around it looking up at their own night sky, wondering what is out there and hoping that one day it will all make sense.</p>
<p>In the silence of my thoughts, a noise that was not of my doing began; a faint sound that should no longer be possible within this plane. It sounded like laughter muffled by water. I struggled to make it go away and a pinprick of terror sprouted in my consciousness. This should not be happening; nothing should be out of my control. The sound grew and echoed within my mind and so did the terror inside me as I realized it was not laughter I was hearing; but screams. The screaming reverberating inside my mind was unbearable, I could not focus on anything. I began to feel a tugging coalesce somewhere along my consciousness, my vision became clouded, I could no longer do anything but listen to the cacophony inside my mind. I felt Him grip my mind once again and was pulled from my newfound existence back into space and time. I could feel my mind squish and twist under His grip, exploding as dozens of consciousnesses were forced from me; blinding pain surged all around me as colors intermingled and flew by me. Of all the knowledge and power that was given to me by Him, only a husk of memory remained as I found myself screaming into the abyssal depths of His eye, once again back on Earth.</p>
<p>Immediately, the origin of the screams became apparent as I looked around and saw my people struggling to break free from Him, some already limp in His grasp. My connection to them had been painfully severed. I could distinctly hear Mordecai's helpless wail and my heart began to thump harder in my chest. But it was pointless to panic or to struggle to get free, if He could take away your existence as a Singularity, the power of a God; then who am I to hope to escape His grasp? I looked around at my people, some flailing dead in His movements, some still fighting; screaming, and accepted my fate. My last thoughts were of Mordecai as I felt His grip slowly tighten around my chest and the screams of those around me rattle in my ears.</p>
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